


i'll keep walking toward the sound of your voice

by flintsjohn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Getting Back Together, M/M, Multiple Alternate Universes, and sticked together with hope, it's just all the tropes smashed together, much scientific handwaving. like a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 22:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19450567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flintsjohn/pseuds/flintsjohn
Summary: It starts some time after he finds the glass shard hidden in the wall – which, of course, he only realizes in hindsight.It’s not until the night after Caufield, sitting in Michael’s trailer waiting for him to come back so he can make sure he’s alright after what happened in that godforsaken place, that he’s actually able to put all the clues together.





	i'll keep walking toward the sound of your voice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlecountrymouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlecountrymouse/gifts).



> phew this took forever to put down. i wasn't sure where i wanted it to go, and i ended up smashing all of my favorite tropes together and hoping it would work, because why not?  
> this is actually a giveaway prize for @littlecountrymouse, who asked for hurt/comfort. i went a little heavy on the comfort but i have no regrets. sorry it took so long, i hope you like this!
> 
> title from _you are jeff #21_ by richard siken.
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://vlamito.tumblr.com) to yell about malex!

It starts some time after he finds the glass shard hidden in the wall – which, of course, he only realizes in hindsight. The first time he notices something might be wrong, it’s because his left hand suddenly stiffens and seizes. Alex has had his fair share of phantom pains and seasonal aches, but his left hand had never bothered him, for the simple reason that he’d never hurt it. He shakes it off and the sensation passes after a few seconds, leaving him frowning and worried.

After that, it’s small things – a headache when he’d been perfectly fine seconds before, nausea hitting him at random times, dizziness following that; bouts of anger flash through him at times, leaving him confused; on one remarkable occasion, it’s lust that grips him, traitorous images of Michael popping up in his brain, which he blames on having seen him that very afternoon at the Wild Pony, though it hadn’t been a pleasant encounter. In the end, he resorts to asking Kyle to check him up, but after a basic run down, Kyle finds nothing is wrong with him, so Alex chalks it up to tiredness from working so hard on Project Shepard. 

It’s not until the night after Caufield, sitting in Michael’s trailer waiting for him to come back so he can make sure he’s alright after what happened in that godforsaken place, that he’s actually able to put all the clues together. He’s wringing his hands together when he feels a sharp pain in his neck, like someone just stabbed him in the jugular. He’s gasping through the pain, hand flying to his neck and coming away perfectly clean, when an image flashes in front of his eyes: Michael, lying on the floor in a room he doesn’t recognize, in a pool of blood. Alex is out of the trailer and into his car in seconds.

He drives in a haze, an inexplicable pull leading him to where he needs to be. He pulls up to Max Evans’ house and stumbles out of his car. There’s a broken window and a body lying in a heap against the fire pit, so Alex rushes there first, sighing in relief when he recognizes him as Max. He checks up on him and exhales when he finds he’s passed out but still breathing, then turns to the house. His breath catches in his throat when he sees the other body – this time, there’s no question it’s Michael. His curls are matted down with blood from the gash in his throat, a glass shard sticking out of the wound. Alex feels his breath stutter as he kneels next to Michael, his right leg screaming at him as his fingers frantically try to staunch the blood still gurgling out of the cut. 

It takes a moment, but then his Air Force training kicks into action as he divests himself of his jacket and flannel, bunching the latter up. He bites his lip for a second, torn between taking the glass piece out and leaving it in but with no way of stopping the blood. He opts for taking it out, slowly, in the end, so that he can press the shirt against the wound. Michael is, mercifully, still breathing, though his breaths are slowing down by the second. 

Alex is talking himself down from a panic attack when Max finally comes to and shoves him aside, hand pressing directly into the wound. Alex watches dazedly as Max’s hand starts to glow red and Max’s face scrunches up like he’s in pain. Distantly, he’s aware of a warm feeling tingling in his own neck. The lights start to flicker as Max puts more and more power into healing Michael. When he collapses to the side, Michael’s breaths have settled into a faster pace. 

_He’s alive. He’s okay_ , Alex thinks. He feels like crying. He places a hand on Michael’s chest, almost as if he has to convince himself he’s actually breathing, then tries to match his own erratic breaths to the steady rhythm. By the time he’s breathing properly again, Isobel is barreling through the open window, gasping as her eyes take in the scene in front of her.

Through the ringing in his ears, he can hear Max and Isobel saying something about Noah escaping, and he wonders what Isobel’s husband has to do with any of this. The twins tell him they need to leave, though they both seem a little hesitant to leave Michael behind. He’s vaguely aware of promising them he’ll take care of Michael, and then they’re gone.

It doesn’t take much longer for Michael to wake up after that. He comes to gasping for air, bolting upright so fast that Alex barely has time to move back to avoid knocking their heads together. He clenches his hands in his lap. His stump is throbbing in pain and there’s a headache pressing against his temples with a vengeance, but all he can focus on is Michael and the way he’s frantically look around as he gets his bearings, before his eyes finally settle on Alex and everything stops.  
Michael opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, no sound coming out of it. Alex figures he’s still in shock, so he stands up with some difficulty and a badly repressed wince to get him some water. He has to press the glass into Michael’s hand and lead it to his mouth for Michael to drink it, but after some sips he seems to come back into focus, the gears in his brain working once again.

“What… How…?” Alex smiles at Michael’s attempt – at least he’s talking, and he can’t really blame him for being so confused, when Alex himself still has no idea how exactly he got here, though a crazy thought has begun to form in his brain, clues adding up like little puzzle pieces.

“I just… Felt it,” is what he says in the end, with a helpless shrug.

“Felt what?” Michael’s eyes are still a little unfocused, so Alex urges him to drink some more water, which the alien does after an on-brand eye-roll.

“Don’t freak out, but I think we were on point when we said we were connected.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because I felt it, when you got stabbed. And I got here somehow.”

“You mean connected like… Soulmates?”

Alex shrugs at the word. He knows they’ve both been thinking it, but out loud it sounds corny and movie-like, not at all how he’d want to describe this thing. Still, that’s the closest they’ve come to a definition, so he says, “Possibly.”

Michael laughs. He laughs for a long time, disbelieving and hysterical, and Alex is torn between frowning at him for dismissing this so quickly and being worried that the trauma has finally got the best of him. He doesn’t have time to do any of that, because Michael doubles over, which in turn causes _Alex_ to double over, and he’s sure that, were this a normal situation, he shouldn't be able to see what he sees next – meaning, Noah Bracken, looking creepy and evil as he crouches over a wincing Max and an unconscious Isobel. It’s gone as soon as it started, Max’s living room coming back into focus at the same time for Michael and Alex, who both stumble to their feet.

“I have to go,” Michael says, frantic. He still looks like a zombie, which Alex guesses is pretty accurate right this second.

“I’m coming with you,” he replies, stubbornly. He doesn’t give Michael the time to disagree, which he’s sure he would do considering he’s already opened his mouth, because he’s already out the door and halfway to his car before Michael catches up, jaw set and frowning at him. Well, Alex thinks, he’ll have to suck it up, because he’s not about to let Michael put himself in a life-or-death situation for the third time in a day.

*

All in all, the end to the whole fourth alien ordeal is quite anti-climatic, if you ask Alex. Or, well, that’s what it looks like to him, because in a Bilbo Baggins-like turn of events, he comes to with everything already over. A pointed glare at the three aliens – not four, because he learns quickly enough Noah has been fried by some new Thor-like power Max somehow acquired – is enough to let him know that he was accidentally hit by a rock during Michael’s telekinetic rage against Noah, and that he’d been passed out for the whole thing. So much for protecting his soulmate.

Heh. Soulmate. They’ll have to discuss that sooner or later. It’s up to Alex to make it sooner, because from the look on Michael’s face, if it were up to him, they’d never see the day when that discussion happens. So Alex takes it upon himself to get Michael back into his SUV and drive him to the cabin – with Michael muttering to himself the whole time that he doesn’t want to be there, but so what. He almost has to wrestle Michael into the house when they get there, but thankfully a pointed frown is enough for the alien to let himself be guided inside and into the bathroom, where Alex runs him a hot bath as he gathers some clothes for Michael to change into.

By the time Michael comes into the bedroom, exhausted and with his hair still damp, Alex has changed into a sweater and some sweatpants, discarded his prosthetic, and curled up in bed. Michael hovers in the doorway, looking like he has no intention to step forward, which Alex understands, but it doesn’t prevent him from wanting him close. He bites his lip and sits up properly, wrapping his arms around himself as he opens his mouth to talk. Michael precedes him.

“I don’t know what this is, but I can’t- I can’t be with you right now, Alex.”

Beneath the pang of hurt in his chest Alex is sure is his own, he can feel an immense sadness that can’t possibly be _entirely_ his. He can see it, too, when he looks up at Michael, tears in the man’s eyes that mirror the ones Alex can feel gathering at the corners of his eyes. He nods, slowly, clearing his throat. “But you feel it, too.”

“I do,” Michael assures him, voice rough and wet with tears, “I do, Alex, I feel nothing else but you. And I love you. I know you can probably feel that if you feel everything else, but I need you to hear it. I love you. But being with you… It’s too much, right now. There are things I need to figure out first.”

Alex nods along, sniffing as he dries his tears with the edge of his sleeve. Now that Michael mentions it, he does feel it – thrumming under everything else, intertwined with his own feelings for Michael, following every beat of his heart. Steady. Certain. But too painful to be faced right now. Alex understands. He wishes he didn’t, he wishes he could be angry at Michael for putting it into words, but he can’t. Because as much as Alex knows he reminds Michael of the worst moments of his life, the same is true for Alex. 

“I have something to show you, before you go,” he says after a long, tense silence. Michael looks at him warily as he picks up his crutches and moves to the living room so he can retrieve his backpack. He doesn’t know if the soulmates thing will lead them anywhere, if they’ll ever get to a point where they can look at each other and see only the love they have for each other. He doesn’t know if they’ll manage to get to know each other like he’d said he wanted, if they’ll fall back in love the way he hopes they will. But if anything, he can give Michael this.

He collapses on the couch, body still too exhausted from the night’s events, before he takes the glass piece out of the backpack. Michael audibly gasps when he sees the iridescent shard, and in a second he’s beside Alex, hands roaming over the glass, which comes to life under his touch, the symbols Alex had studied and pored over for months blinking at him. He doesn't say that he thinks the glass has something to do with their connection, or at least with having jumpstarted it. He only waits for Michael to say something.

It feels like forever before Michael finally looks up at him, and Alex wishes he didn’t know Michael well enough to recognize the faint trace of betrayal he can see in those beautiful hazel eyes. He looks away, unable to meet Michael’s eyes, and mutters an apology. 

“How long…?” Michael whispers. Alex can see only his hands, still clutched around the glass.

“A couple of months. I didn’t know how… At first I didn’t know, of course. And after you showed me the console, I just- I knew this was the last piece. And I couldn’t bear the thought of being the one to give you your ticket off the planet.” He shrugs, voice small as he utters the words. He’d been so, so selfish, and now he has to deal with the consequences.

When he looks up, finally, Michael’s face is just a mask of exhaustion. His eyes are shining and red-rimmed, but he shakes his head when Alex opens his mouth for another apology. “Don’t. I understand. I would’ve done the same if I’d had a way to keep you here.” He doesn’t smile, but he reaches over to squeeze Alex’s hand. “I’ll take the couch, if that’s ok? You can drive me to the junkyard tomorrow.” 

Alex nods numbly at him, kicking himself mentally for not thinking about the fact that he basically kidnapped Michael, and of course he won't be able to leave, because Alex drove them here. He gets up before his brain can talk him into doing something stupid like kiss Michael goodnight. As he settles into bed, he tries to keep his emotions in check, knowing that if they become too loud, Michael will be able to feel them. He’d expected disappointment, maybe anger, from Michael. The fact that he got neither of those things, but just bone-weary tiredness, leaves him reeling. He guess he’ll just have to deal with it in the morning.

*

Alex drives them out to the junkyard early the next day, stopping for coffee and donuts, which Michael accepts because he’s hungry, even though it feels like a bribe, or an attempt to earn his forgiveness. The glass sits in his lap, where he cradles it protectively for the whole ride. He doesn’t waste any time when they get to Sanders', just moves the Airstream so he can get to the hatch, then lowers himself into the bunker, pausing only to check Alex makes his way down in one piece.

It takes no time at all for the piece to fit itself into the console’s frame, Alex watching from a few steps back while Michael hovers over the tech, and then he's touching the completed console as it vibrates to life in a whirlwind of colors and images, dancing around in front of his eyes. It takes him a few seconds to recognize what he’s looking at, but he gasps when he sees them.

There’s him and Alex, hands joined with rings on their fingers, kissing under a gazebo. At first, he thinks it might be a glimpse into their future, but no, there’s something there… His mother is there, frail and curved under the weight of time, but smiling. There are others he doesn’t recognize, but he _feels_ them. He shakes his head at the impossibility of it all. His brain searches frantically for explanations – a dream? Distant hopes? What could’ve been? – even as he can feel the console pulsing an answer to him. _Yes, yes, yes_.

And then the scene changes. They’re on Antar and he doesn’t know how he knows it but they are. Max and Isobel are there, except they’re dressed in regalia and people are bowing for them. Next to them stands a man in armor, and Michael balks when he recognizes himself. He can’t hear what people are saying but he manages to read their lips – _General Rath_ , is what they call him. And still, Alex is at his side. He can see flashes of memories run in front of his eyes, Alex crashing on their planet in a ship, Alex trying to make them understand he’s coming in peace even as Michael – _Rath_ – arrests him, Alex learning their language so they can communicate, Alex getting himself out of jail and talking himself into a position as ambassador. Michael watches in awe as Rath and Alex fall in love over time, plotting treaties and organizing embassy trips. He watches as they stand next to each other on the first trip back to Earth, Alex vibrating in his skin as he stands in front of his father. He watches as Alex breaks free of his father’s control and decides to stay on Antar with Rath.

The scene changes again and Michael can feel all the air in his lungs rush out of him, because suddenly he’s staring at an idyllic picture of himself and Alex sitting on a cream-white couch in a house he doesn’t recognize, with three kids running around. He narrows his eyes at their curls and chocolate-brown eyes, because they look like a perfect mix of him and Alex and he’s not sure he wants to know how that happened (not that it matters, because the console is apparently an asshole and an image of him with a full belly and Alex pressing his ear to it pops up. He’s not sure he’ll be able to erase _that_ from his brain.)

He’s wrenched out of it before his eyes can water at the perfectly happy family his alternate self seems to have, and then it’s just a blur of changing scenes, one right after the other, so fast he’s barely able to bring one into focus before it’s replaced by another. It’s the two of them in a café, laughing over cappuccinos as they revise for exams; it’s Alex on a stage, thousands of people screaming for him as Michael watches from backstage, eyes shining with pride; it’s him and Alex as little kids, Michael holding Ann Evans’ hand on the first day of school because they had adopted him along with his siblings (and boy, if that doesn’t bring tears to his eyes), Alex asking with a gap-toothed smile if Michael can come and play at his house sometimes; it’s Alex piloting his ship after he’s pushed Michael aside because he’s bad at it and keeps getting distracted by calculations (and by Alex’s stupidly pretty face), laughing with the stars reflecting in his eyes; it’s a curly-haired woman pushing a lock of slick black hair behind the ear of a smaller, wide-eyed woman (this particular one sends Michael into a bout of surprised laughter, because _yes_ , even here, it’s always the two of them); it’s the two of them curled up on the couch in the shed, naked and giggling, and Michael feels a punch to the gut realizing when that is, only they never pull apart and Jesse never shows up, and they hold each other through the night, Michael’s hand untouched, no flashes of Isobel or Rosa interrupting them. 

He watches the universes alternate, never fully in them but always knowing, deep in his gut, what each of them would feel like. And Alex, Alex, Alex, always there, a steady presence in all of them. It’s only when he manages to pull himself out of it, chest heaving and brain whirring like he’s just travelled around the world in under a minute, that he turns and looks up into Alex’s eyes and realizes he experienced all of that, too, and he’s already crying, crying and smiling, and then he breaks into a laugh that it’s half-sob and it startles them both out of their reverie.

Before he knows what he’s doing, Michael is closing the small distance that separates them and he’s crashing into Alex, wrapping him up in his arms, burying his face in the crook of Alex’s neck. They hold each other and cry, and Michael’s not even sure _why_ they’re crying – hope? Relief? A mix of them? – but he knows everything he’d been thinking up until the night before has just been thrown out of the window, because an alien console from his home planet had just confirmed to him, none too gently, that they _are_ soulmates, and who is he to disobey the universe's plan?

They’re both still crying as they draw back, though they’re also smiling as Michael cups Alex’s face, drying the few tears rolling down his cheeks. “Are you ok?” He doesn’t know why he’s whispering, but everything seems suddenly so quiet around them. Peaceful.

Alex nods, turning his face so he can kiss the center of Michael’s palm. He drops his forehead against Michael’s and sighs, a happy little sound that melts something inside of Michael. “So, soulmates.”

“Yeah,” Michael laughs, pressing closer. “And a multiverse, apparently.” Alex hums, eyes closed like he’s reliving some of the scenes the console showed them. Michael can’t say he doesn’t want to do the same.

“Some of them would be achievable,” Alex says, shyly. There’s an echo of hope, just a tiny hint of it, that Michael can feel in what he now fully recognizes as their bond.

“Hmm, I know I’m not doing _some_ of them,” he says, grinning when that elicits a small laugh from Alex. They both know it’s a joke, really – he’d do anything for and with Alex, if that was possible. Which leads him back to the conversation they’re supposed to have. “Alex, I-“

“Don’t. I understand that it doesn’t change anything. We can’t always work out in every universe.”

“What?” Michael frowns, confused. He pulls back enough to look at Alex properly, and his frown deepens at the sadness in Alex’s eyes. “No, you idiot.” Alex glares at him, already opening his mouth, so Michael rushes to add, “It changes _everything_. Sure, we’ll have to work through it, but I was- I was an idiot to think that because we’ve shared some tragedies, that all the good things would be cancelled out by them. I’m so sorry, Alex.”

“You are?” The awe in Alex’s voice makes Michael’s heart clench, and he nods, pulling him close again. 

“I should have realized sooner, that I was fighting you and planning to fight you even more, when all I should’ve been doing was fight _for_ you.”

Alex doesn’t reply to that, not with words, but he doesn’t have to. Michael can feel the relief coming from him and slamming into him through their bond like a physical punch as Alex wraps his arms tighter around Michael’s shoulders and moves in for a kiss, Michael accepting it eagerly. 

*

Adjusting to a relationship after a decade of back-and-forth isn’t easy, but they manage with minor hitches – minor, Michael thinks, compared to what they’ve been through before. It’s not like they’re the worst off, anyway, what with Valenti putting Jesse Manes in a coma, Max going ahead with the “let’s resuscitate Rosa” plan (though, thankfully, he waits for Michael and Iz to be there, grumbling and disgruntled, but giving him enough energy not to kill himself in the process), and Maria and Arturo getting in the know of things. All things considered, them getting together is the most ordinary event out of all of them.

They visit the console regularly, having moved it in the detox-bunker (Michael finds it hilarious that they each have a bunker, though Alex doesn’t find it equally funny) along with the rest of Michael's things when he moved into the cabin. Sometimes it’s both of them, other times it’s just Michael going down the ladder to spend some time with the piece of alien tech. 

It seems like there are countless universes the console has to show them. In some of them, things are significantly different, with creatures Michael has never seen before, or them being on Antar; in others, they can tell reality and alternate universe apart only by minor details, like the color of someone’s hair or a particular scar not being there. 

They also discover, quite quickly, that not all the lives being shown are in different universes than their own. The day they figure out that some scenes are a product of reincarnation is a wild one, but in hindsight, at least to Michael, it makes sense. If soulmates and alternate universe are a thing, why shouldn’t reincarnation be?

That day, the console takes their shared consciousness through eras that Michael remembers from boring history books, and like with the universes, the constant is always the two of them, together. In some of them, Michael can recognize some of the others, too, though not always. They're not always in the same bodies, either, but somehow they both always know it's _them_.

They flash through Ancient Egypt, where Alex looks regal as the pharaoh’s son, and Michael sees himself engraved in some of the hieroglyphs. Next, they’re in the Coliseum in Rome, Alex watching in boredom as Michael gets eaten by a lion after he loses a fight as a gladiator (and after, when they’re curled in bed together and recounting their favorite life, Michael pouts at Alex for having let him die so gruesomely). The next time jump is quite big, placing them in South America around the time it’s “discovered” by the Spaniards – only Michael is already there, a god-king alongside Alex this time, and he manages to protect their town from the invasion. They’re pirates in Nassau after that, and then Michael is meeting Alex as the son of a Navajo Chief (who kills him straight away, but Michael can’t really blame him). The last life the console shows them is in the 1940s, during the war, both of them enlisted together, which Michael thinks must be some kind of twisted joke.

In all of their previous lives, the one constant besides them being together seems to be that Michael has his powers, which he doesn’t always have in the alternate universes. He guesses that part of what Max had recounted about Noah’s babbling about Jesus and gods and aliens had been true, and that the Antarans had actually landed on Earth well before 1947, and in semi-regular bouts after that. Like a holiday destination, Alex supplies helpfully. The idea makes Michael laugh and shake his head, but he supposes that’s as good a guess as anything.

As time draws on, some of the things the console had first shown them do come to fruition, and some of the universes adjust accordingly. Michael does propose to Alex (who cries, not that he’ll never admit to it), and they do get married under the gazebo in the town’s center, even though his mother isn’t there for it. They do have kids, though they foster and then adopt them, because Michael freaks out and begs Kyle to check that he can’t actually carry children (he can’t, but Kyle has blackmailing material for the rest of their lives either way). Michael even manages to build a ship, what with all the new technologies and an amazing sister-in-law’s help, and though they never fully move to Antar, they manage to locate it, and in 2045 the whole extended family embarks on an intergalactic holiday.

Life is good. They visit the console – now properly installed into the ship – less and less, but it’s always there for them when they need a reminder, showing them the countless possibilities, the countless attempts at happiness – not all of them successful, but always together. Yeah, Michael thinks on most nights as he falls asleep next to Alex. All lives and all universes are good.


End file.
